7Mar 11

Recently Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences, they have taken it upon themselves to watch and review each of these in turn on a roughly one-per-week basis. This is part one.

DISCLAIMER DEPT: This is probably NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

Meyer’s first big film is not easy to get through by any stretch, even at 62 minutes. The only voice we hear throughout is (according to Jim McDonough’s Meyer bio, Big Bosoms And Square Jaws) Irving Blum, later to become big in the world of art, and he sounds a lot like Pete White narrating a Disney doc about the habits of the screech owl. Aside from that – I hope you enjoy accordions, because that’s what you’re getting.
Mr Teas is the story of this man:

Yes. This is, apparently, ‘The Common Man’, trapped in a world he never made and awash in all manner of modern hustle, bustle and folderol. Is it any wonder he spends every waking second gawping furtively at passing dames? His job is to deliver false teeth, which in the fifties apparently looked like this:

Terrifying Gigeresque contraptions that we would not see again until the advent of the Saw franchise. Anyway, he’s constantly wandering around looking at low-cut tops to the accompaniment of accordions and the nasal tones of Blum, in between tedious visits to trademark Meyer Swamps, until he hits up the dentist he delivers these instruments of God’s wrath to for some root canal work. Enter the plot, such as it is, as the gas transports Teas, via orange-and-blue ‘hypnotic’ spiral, to a land of fantasy:

Including a bit of prop comedy as the dentist pulls a large stag antler out of Teas’ mouth. From thence the hi-jinks ensue – although they’re barely even jinks – as Teas finds himself sucked by the hypno-swirls into various fantasies involving the same women he macked on throughout the first chunk of the film, and the occasional watermelon.

He also gets plenty of opportunities in the real world to ogle naked broads, including breaking into a burlesque theatre advertising FRENCH PEEP SHOW STARRING TEMPEST STORM in giant letters (a burlesque flick by Meyer now lost to the mists of time) to watch ’Nana’ strut her stuff in front of an audience of four baying schnooks, including Russ Meyer himself and what appears to be a young Richard Nixon:

Which puts the whole Irving Blum thing in the shade. Also he visits a psychiatrist:

Who turns out to be A GOIL! (The shock ending to this film is like The Sixth Sense times a billion Usual Suspects! Don’t breathe a word! It’s like The Mousetrap! Well, we‘ll get there.)
It’s a common problem, apparently:

Finally the two strands of ogling naked women in fantasy and ogling naked women in reality come together as Teas has an extended dream sequence in which he watches the three main dames act out scenes presumably parodying the kind of ’educational’ nudist camp flick that was as far as cinema had dared to go up until now. Meanwhile, allegedly-Blum narrates a thick soup of quasi-educational factoids over the viewer, as well as some music-hall level yuks. Over a scene of Michele Roberts vaguely fondling a guitar, we get the following: “The guitar is a very sensitive instrument, with “G” being the third string, and is played over a system of frets. Sensitive men have – chuckle – been fretting over G-strings for years!”
It’s not the only old bar-room gag that gets trotted out. Witness a cartoon from the depths of an ’armpit slick’ mag made flesh:

Eventually, we wind up to the punch line as he returns to the shrink and, as literally NO-ONE could have seen coming:

“Some men just enjoy being sick”, intones the nasal voice of Blum, and we’re out.

It’s worth pointing out that nobody had ever made something like this before. There’d been nudie-cuties and roughies, slipshod underground skin-flicks, but – post-Code – nothing that had ever passed a censor board or been reviewed as a serious film in newspapers. And the public responded – the film grossed one and a half million bucks (having been made on a budget of twenty-four grand). It played for three years straight in Los Angeles.
This wouldn’t be the last time Meyer would push the boundaries, but it was definitely one of the most successful. Like the atomic bomb, Russ Meyer was here to stay, and like the atomic bomb he killed millions of WAIT HOLD ON BACKSPACE BACKSPACE

—-

DESIGNATED SAP: Mr Teas himself. Practically invisible to women, the only attention he gets is from bouncers giving him the boot he richly deserves. The narrator refers to him as a ’poisonous snake’. Small children stone him. They’ve got the right idea, by God!

BECAUSE YOU CAN DIE THERE: Meyer was a big fan of the desert for this reason, according to Charles Napier, and if he can’t get desert he’ll happily take a swamp. Any patch of wilderness will do. Here’s Teas and a honey of the period in a tree for no reason:

OF ITS TIME: Schwinn bikes.

Burlesque.

Jules Feiffer.

FAMILIAR FACES: None yet, this being Meyer’s first. Although octogenarians may recognise June Wilkinson, who agreed to have her breasts in the film, but not her face. Which basically means them poking out of a window like the copy protection from Leisure Suit Larry III.

ONE-HIT WONDERS: Very often, an actor will never appear on celluloid again after making his debut in a Meyer film. In this case, Bill Teas. Also, Marilyn Wesley as the Dental Assistant and Dawn Danielle as a topless model posing on a beach, who Teas squints at while making this face:

Add your comment

Related Posts

Welcome To Violence: Eve And The Handyman 12 Mar 2011 Recently Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences,…

Welcome To Violence: Wild Gals Of The Naked West 15 Mar 2011 Recently Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences,…

Welcome To Violence: Lorna 23 Mar 2011 Recently Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences,…

Welcome To Violence: Mudhoney 5 Apr 2011 Recently Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences,…

Film 2Oh!!: EXTREME!!! 2 Jun 2011 23. Robogeisha (DVD) Yesterday I filled in a questionnaire about Extreme Asian cinema which wanted to know why I might watch something that may be filed under "Asian Extreme" cinema.…

Welcome To Violence: Mondo Topless 26 Jan 2014 “Recently” Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe came into possession of a box set containing “18 uplifting classics” (end quote) from the cinematic oeuvre of Russ Meyer. Heedless of the consequences,…

About the Author

Al Ewing writes comics, novels and other bits and pieces. Sarah Peploe writes short fiction, writes and draws comics and leaves the house.

Featured Posts

26 Jan 2004
“Black Man Ray” is Ray Charles, who China Crisis apparently believe in. Now Ray Charles’ blackness is not a secret, so why did China Crisis see fit to remind us of it on their incomprehensibly awful single? My theories: i) They were talking about the photographer Man Ray, and asserting that he was black. Which […]

10 Jan 2012
Hi, I’m Lauryn Hill circa my breakthrough role in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit, and it is a real pleasure to be able to present to you the top ten FreakyTrigger tracks of the year. When my mother told me I couldn’t join the choir run by a fake nun, I got really […]

2 Feb 2001
The Usual Excuses Bowery Electric’s “Freedom Fighter” is bewitching and worrying, and not just because it was made by a band I’d put down as America’s most useless. In fact the beat Bowery Electric use on “Freedom Fighter” sounds as familiar as ever, but that for once works in the song’s favour, in the same […]

8 Feb 2001
Charlemagne Palestine – Four Manifestations on Six Elements 1. Charlemagne Palestine approaches a piano like a climber approaches a mountain. He does not play the instrument so much as he lets it test him: he starts each performance like an ascent, knowing that somewhere ahead there are the limits of the piano, and also the […]

23 Mar 2014
#773, 13th September 1997 “Whenever we played that live there would be rows of grown men crying. It was almost like these guys couldn’t cry when they needed to cry, but that song operated like a pressure valve for them and it was okay for them to cry at a big rock concert.” – Richard […]

3 Apr 2017
So for a while myself and Pamela Hutchinson, of Silent London fame have been talking about doing a more regular podcast. And while we love talking about silent films, we also like new films too. And so The Sound Barrier was born over a Campari Spritz or four, we take a new release and we […]

14 Nov 2006
In The Beginning There Was Nothingness. IF ONLY. In The Beginning There Was The Word. NOT THE BIRD FROM L7 PULLING DOWN HER KECKS AGAIN. But neither of these are strictly true. Because the first book of the Bible Of Badness is Genesis. And if you were ever to question how bad this Bible could […]